Accepting Payments Online

There are many ways to accept payments online. PayPal, Authorize.Net, Stripe, Amazon, and many more are offering ways to accept payments on your website. With so many options, it can be challenging to know which is your best option.

Security

When your website is handling credit card numbers and other sensitive data, website security must be a top priority. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is an information security standard for handling credit cards. Understanding the requirements, compliance levels, and validation methods are enough to make your head spin.

We typically use Stripe for handling payments on websites. And by using Stripe, we get to use the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) for validation of compliance. While we do take website security seriously, it's best to let Stripe handle the collection of sensitive data.

Ease of Implementation

Stripe's API makes it simple and straightforward for developers to integrate it into their applications. In doing this, it has become a popular choice and helped the company grow to a point where they now process billions of dollars every year.

While Stripe is simpler to integrate, it still takes the developer some time to build a secure form on the website. Also, the user doesn't ever leave your site – even when we let Stripe handle the collection of the credit card information.

Some of the other payment processors either want you to direct your visitors away from your site or have you handle the visitor's credit card information. These methods don't provide a good user experience and can lead to a higher bounce rate.

Conclusion

There are many things to consider when adding a payment form to your website so please be careful. And if you need help, please contact us. We'd love to help you.